snow

Don’t let the knee-high size of [Hrastovc]’s creation fool you. TrackRobot weighs in at a monstrous 60 kg (130 lbs) of steel, motors, and battery. It sports two 48V motors in a body and frame made from pieces of finger-jointed sheet steel, and can reach speeds of up to four meters per second with a runtime of up to an hour. The project’s link has more pictures as well as DXF files of the pieces used for the body.

Currently TrackRobot is remote-controlled, but one goal is to turn it into a semi-autonomous snow plow. You can see TrackRobot going through its first steps as well as testing out a plow prototype in the videos embedded below.

In parts of the world where it snows a lot and there are requirements for homeowners to keep sidewalks clear, a personal snowblower is it seems an essential piece of equipment. They have traditionally used internal combustion engines, but electric models are also available.

[Joel Clemens] is not impressed by the commercial electric blowers available to him as an American, because their 120 V mains supply just can’t deliver the power to make an effective two-stage design. So he’s built his own using a formerly gasoline-powered blower from a garage sale, and a 240 V industrial motor.

The blower is an impressive piece of equipment even if his running it close to its own cord does look rather hazardous. But the video is also of interest for its examination of the state of access to 240 V outlets for Americans. [Joel] has one for his electric vehicles, and has made a splitter box to give him the required American-style 240 V industrial connector. He makes the point that this is becoming more common as the take-up of electric vehicles gathers pace.

If have ever gone snowmobiling, you may have thought about how to revive that thrill in the more confined atmosphere of an urban environment — to say nothing of their utility. In anticipation of heavy snowfall over the winter in his hometown, [Ben] stripped the essence of the snowmobile down as an emergency vehicle and reshaped it into the Snow Bike.

This compact, winter transportation solution uses an e-bike controller, a chopped up ski, and a heavy snowblower track and a large RC plane motor for power all strapped onto a modified mountain bike frame. The motor mount is machined aluminum, the track rollers milled out of spare plastic — though they later had to be modified as they tended to get clogged by snow — and the front ski is simply bolted on using some 3″ square tubing.

Due to its small size the Snow Bike looks about as stable as a pocket bike, so perhaps some training tracks and or skis might help in deeper powder. [Ben] also notes that the present motor doesn’t have much power so the rider needs to keep it at full throttle to push through the snow. That said — seeing this thing smoothly cruising around in several inches of snow makes us wish we had one of our own.

For anyone living in cooler climates, the annual onslaught of snow means many hours shoveling driveways and sidewalks. After a light snow, shoveling might seem a waste of time, while a snow blower would be overkill. If only there were a happy middle ground that required minimal effort; perhaps an RC snow groomer with a 3D printed snow blower would work.

We featured an earlier version of this project last year. This year’s model features a slipper clutch — combined with a differential from a heavy RC truck — to forestall damage to the attachment if you happen to hit any rocks or ice chunks. The blades are also thicker and lack teeth in this iteration, as they would catch on anything hard and shatter the blade more often than not. Designed by [Spyker Workshop] (aka [The_Great_Moo]) the snow blower attaches to the front of RC snow groomer — which is originally meant to act like a plow. Seeing the snow blower attachment in action, we’re inclined to believe that he may be onto something.

[Mark Rober] is an uncle to three nieces and nephews, and when there is snow on the ground he faces the relentless onslaught of three elite juvenile snowball aces. Lesser men would face the fact that they are over the hill when it comes to snow-based combat, but not [Mark]. He has brought technology to his aid, and with the help of his brother created a snowball machine gun capable of firing 13 snowballs at the unruly youths in half a second.

Power for his creation comes from a leaf blower, and the gun itself is made from ABS pipe fixed onto the blower outlet. Magazines made from pipe with its top section cut away are loaded via a 45 degree junction fitting, and the rate of fire is set by how fast the operator pushes the line of snowballs with a wooden block. He has made full build instructions available as a PDF, so assuming you are reading this in a part of the world where it snows, what are you waiting for! Those of us who live in paces where it rarely snows and what snow we get is wet and slushy can only look on with envy.

The video below has the full story, complete with gratuitous destruction of fruit, youngsters cowering in their snow forts, and finally [Mark] receiving his snowy comeuppance.

When [Ronald Walters] was building a new house, he decided he didn’t want to shovel snow anymore. So he built a snow melt system under his new driveway. He knew the system would be expensive to operate, but he reasoned it was cheaper than back surgery and much cheaper than having a heart attack.

The system uses PEX pipe on rebar and insulation that is all set down before the concrete in the driveway. An instant-on water heater produces the heat that melts the snow and ice off [Ronald’s] driveway with no shoveling required. The working fluid includes anti-freeze, of course, and there is a set of pumps, flow valves, and flow meters to keep everything flowing when the system is in operation.

What do you get when you combine two bikes, a couple levers, and a home made wooden shovel? Why, a light duty tricycle plow, of course! [Craig] of Firefly Workshop cobbled together this contraption to assist him in shoveling his 90′ driveway when a few inches fall. More convenient than a normal shovel, and much more environmentally friendly than his 8 Horsepower snow blower, this trike looks like it could actually make shoveling the snow fun. Not really much more here than meets the eye, we just wish we had a video to share of this sweet ride in action.